


South Paw

by PaxVobis



Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol, Business Trip, Charles/Pickles implied, Drug Use, Emotionally Repressed, M/M, Manipulation, Non-Consensual Groping, Podfic Welcome, Rough Kissing, Surprise Kissing, crotch grabbing, hm, i believe this is the first charles/seth fic on the site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 09:46:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18313121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaxVobis/pseuds/PaxVobis
Summary: At a business summit, Seth goes for the balls.





	South Paw

It wasn’t good, what was happening.

When Charles Offdensen perceived the world around him, he so often found himself coming back to these designations.  Good, bad, nothing – positive, negative, or zero-sum.  He resented it; resented the way it simplified complex situations, made them into maths that felt easier to navigate like walking through a crowd or balancing a spreadsheet.  He resented how inhuman it made him feel, how robotic.  What was happening wasn’t so simple.  But it wasn’t good, either.

What was happening was… a lot.  Charles couldn’t say what he’d expected from the premise in the first place, _Marketing Summit With Dethklok Australia_.  A terrible concept, crystallised in its pure horribleness, _forced to spend a weekend with Pickles’ brother Seth._   On paper it wasn’t _difficult_ per se, Charles ascribed firmly to the ABKs and would be slaughtering other negotiators with the sheer hard power of Dethklok’s money and armed forces.  These days he barely even needed to network, just steamrollered through conversations; people accepted them because of the cash, and they kept their mouths shut because of the guns.  Today’s Tom Sawyer, et cetera, et cetera.  He could even afford the time for a fitted suit of late.  Wasn’t that the definition of luxury?

Then there was the problem of Seth, but again, on paper, that shouldn’t have been hard.  _On paper,_ underline until the pen broke through the page.  Seth and Pickles were not that different.  They were both stubborn motherfuckers with completely irrational aspirations matched with the bull-like force of their wills, determined to get through to what they wanted; only Pickles reached over the table to wring your throat and Seth reached under the table to, if he could use a crass colloquialism of the business world, twist your nuts instead.  Pickles was easily distracted with shiny toys, intoxicants and cleavage, Seth with money, intoxicants, and cleavage.  All Charles had to do was steamroller and drag Seth along behind him, doped up as much as possible, and at the end of the week he’d get on a plane and be out of here in one piece.

On paper.

In actuality, it was so much more than that.

Perhaps the mistake came in this habit of thinking of his charges like math problems, sheets that could be balanced when, truly, even business wasn’t that simple.  You could calculate a flow, be it millions of molecules or millions of people; in the end the two acted the same.  But one atom?  One person?  Then you were in danger.  Charles would be loath to call Seth _deep_ and yet, yet, here he was, dragging the man out of dining hall by the necktie with what had to be every eye in the conference on them. 

They were meant to win an award in the next fifteen minutes, and now this was happening, and god, it wouldn’t stop happening, Seth’s sneakers squeaking on the tiles of the kitchen corridor as Charles towed him along it.  The waitstaff dodged them, gawking but instantly recognising Charles, the only man in the white tie function with a black shirt, and rightly shutting their damn faces and getting on their way through the still-swinging kitchen doors.  If it had been any other moment Charles would have had someone else remove the jackass.  But no.  No.  He had to take it into his own hands.  Because Seth tried to do the god damn same.

So _about_ that reaching-under-the-table.  Critically, it was not meant to be literal.  Charles had had a tight grip on the idiot from the moment he’d stepped out of the Dethtower and into the limo en route to the lodge: there had been a ploy to drug him with GHB in his Budweiser, but ultimately it was not that hard to get Seth to take drugs and the klokateers just handed it to him and saw it bolted back with a swig of beer and nary a second thought.  Once the first lot was away it was just a matter of topping him up occasionally, and he even thanked Charles for it, oblivious to the cold stare and soothing, measured praise he got in return.  Messy Seth was easy to move, much like messy Pickles; you just dressed him how you liked, took his hand and walked him where you wanted him, and he’d stay basically in that spot until you came to collect again, too lost in his own brain-fuzz to talk about anything but soda flavours or wrestlers from the 1980s.  Nothing got broken, nothing got trashed.  Ideal client, really.

This much Charles had predicted.  He had not factored in the horniness.  Maybe because Pickles’ libido was so quickly zeroed in on the nearest bosom, and that bosom was usually glad for the attention, he hadn’t even remembered it as an issue.  Maybe because it was not a problem he suffered from, a part of life he’d long since let go into the void.  Whatever the case, even if he had predicted it, even if he’d gauged its intensity, he could not have foreseen its direction, and that was blaring, unadulterated, at Charles from the second they were stuck in a lift together.  With all the security around and everything, Seth so fucked up he looked like he was going to liquefy and slither out of the suit they’d put him in.  Full bedroom eyes, staring, husky voice, gazing at Charles and fingering his own lips obscenely.  With the wedding ring and all – mercy.  And still Charles didn’t see where it was going.

Naively, he’d thought if Seth was, indeed, harbouring some secret, frankly repulsive lust for him, it’d just make him easier to control.  And it did, but not in the desired way – for instance, he _followed_ instead of staying still like he was supposed to, trailing around like a lost lamb.  Pickles had had episodes of this and generally Charles ignored them; it was inappropriate in a work relationship.  In the context of a decade of service this came and went, and Charles’ own… _feelings_ … useless things that they were… either had to be shelved or recontextualised.  Love, lofty concept that it was, made for loyal servants.  As Charles fostered it in their legions, so he too was a servant.  It followed.  It was nothing beyond its usefulness.

But then Charles didn’t try to fuck the boys, and the boys rarely tried to fuck him (klokateers were another matter, but that’s why you had personal tasers).  Seth had all the randiness of his brother and none of the _class._   Charles couldn’t believe he was making a distinction of etiquette between ripping off someone’s boob tube on live TV and _this_ display but, come on.  There had to be a line somewhere.  When Pickles was in a _phase_ about him he just mooned around, big stupid eyes, that trawling loneliness in his voice meant to hook Charles into a first move which would never come.  Seth, on the other hand, would apparently eventually tire of the pouting and double entendres and reach right under the table at a business function for his boss’ balls.  And that was _a lot._ The joke had gone too far.

That was the kind of shit that got you tased if you were a klokateer, but it wouldn’t have been very _publicity friendly_ to tase the head of Dethklok Australia in the middle of someone’s speech.  Instead Charles had caught his wrist in a crushing hand and stared him down into a sheepish smile, and quickly extracted the two of them from the table by _accidentally_ spilling Seth’s champagne onto his white dinner jacket.  Oh, whoops, how clumsy, suppose they needed to escape through the nearest door right now, which happened to be to the kitchen, and here was another door, and another, and Seth apologising and squalling and kicking up a fuss about his hand turning white from the fist locked around his wrist, and then, then, _finally,_ the coolroom door swung shut.  And there was quiet.

Seth stood there, shoulders slumped and wringing his poor strangled wrist self-piteously, his breath crystallising in the air as he tried to catch it again.  He looked pathetic, blanched in the fluorescent light of the coolroom, clearly didn’t know what was happening to him, and yes, that was Charles’ fault.  But there was three days left of the summit and this _could not_ happen again.  Still, Charles couldn’t find the right words, how to address this directly but not that directly.  Not with those stupid eyes up on him like that.

As he stood over Seth and looked down his nose at him, Charles noticed they were green.  Not as green as Pickles’.  But green.  The two of them were almost twins, separated only by a handful of years, it was always stifling to pick how they were similar or specifically different.

“Man,” whinged Seth, pouting again, “You fuckin’ near killed my fuckin’ hand, like, I need that for my band and shit, y’know what I mean?  I could sue.” 

“You’d lose.”  Charles had somehow resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  Seth didn’t have a band.  He couldn’t even play guitar.  It was a waste of everyone’s time to point this out.  “It still moves.  You’re fine.”

He saw the defiance lift Seth’s shoulders, but the effort was quickly too much and they dropped again.  A little curl of the lip, the moustache almost the same as Pickles’.  Not quite.  Almost.  “Yeah,” breathed Seth, and his defiance had clearly gone underground.  “Cuz, no one can see us here.  No one knows.  If something happened to it…”

He held his wrist limply in his other hand, looking up at Charles coldly, nearly nose to nose.  Charles gave nothing back.

“… then it’d have to be you that did it…”

Charles let out a short breath, tensing himself.  He couldn’t see anything in the coolroom that Seth could break himself on, just cartons of bottles stacked high, but Seth had surprised him before.  Seconds ago even.  When Seth took a step forward, putting his hands on Charles’ lapels, he took a step back.

“But that was your plan, wasn’t it?” breathed Seth, hoarsely.  Charles’ shoulders were against a wall of cartons.  His hands closed around Seth’s wrists, the skin cold.  He was prepared to break Seth if he had to.

“Motherfucker,” said Seth then, his hands locked on Charles’ lapels, and Charles felt his boozy breath on his face as he said it.  And then Seth’s mouth on his lips, dry and warm and disarming. 

He had grossly misread this situation. 

Charles’ hands tightened around Seth’s for a moment and then relaxed, just as he dropped the thin line he’d pulled his lips into.  This was too much; he wasn’t armed against this.  Didn’t know what to do.  Seth went for broke, flattened his body up against Charles’, took control and pinned his hands to the cartons behind him as soon as he gave a hint of yielding.  His kiss was rough and desperate, pushed Charles’ head back to bump on the cardboard.  And still he was yielding; as his glasses were knocked askew, Charles didn’t know why he was yielding. 

This wasn’t good.  It was an obscene thing he was doing, to let himself fall into groping hands and mouth of his client.  Someone he’d watched over for years, albeit – at a distance.  But Seth wasn’t Pickles, Charles found himself thinking as he wrenched a hand away and wrapped it around the slight man’s back instead, he objectively wasn’t, he was close but he wasn’t.  It wasn’t that… betrayal.  There wasn’t a line to cross, not like that.  And Seth was right, no one could see.  No one knew, and there was no way he could out-bargain Charles.  And his mouth was warm, tasting of champagne, his whole body warm against the coolroom air.  The expensive jacket Charles’ hand curled into, the fabric giving under his fingers.

It wasn’t good, what was happening.

But it wasn’t bad, either.

**Author's Note:**

> comments appreciated as always, love your work!


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